Regional ESMS Specialist

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Job Description

IUCN is a membership Union composed of both government and civil society organisations. It harnesses the experience, resources and reach of its more than 1,300 Member organisations and the input of more than 16,000 experts. IUCN is the global authority on the status of the natural world and the measures needed to safeguard it. The IUCN Secretariat has offices located all around the world and is headquartered in Gland, Switzerland.
Every four years, the IUCN membership adopts a quadrennial Programme that guides the work of the Union, especially that of the IUCN Secretariat. The Secretariat implements the IUCN Programme through a growing portfolio of over 400 projects across the world that are designed to respond to country, donor, and IUCN priorities. IUCN has put in place an Environmental and Social Management System (ESMS) to provide a systematic procedure to check IUCN projects for potential adverse environmental and social impacts and to assure that negative impacts are avoided or minimised to the extent possible while promoting positive impacts. The ESMS procedures and policies are explained in the ESMS Manual and in the ESMS standards available at www.iucn.org/esms.
Currently the application of the ESMS procedures is assumed by the global ESMS Coordinator, but delegation of some of this work is intended to increase the ESMS’ performance, timely delivery and operational efficiency and to ensure the review is geographically closer to the projects and its stakeholder.
To achieve these enhancements, IUCN is hiring an ESMS Specialist for the Regional office for Central and West Africa, PACO. He/she will be responsible for the application of the IUCN ESMS policy on the regional project portfolio, including the strong and growing GEF and GCF Portfolio. This position will contribute to the region’s leadership in safeguard quality assurance and will play a key role in improving IUCN’s ESMS practices and culture. It will require safeguard subject-matter expertise and experience as well as aptitude in advising and training on the need and benefits of safeguard application.
Major Responsibilities:

As the regional specialist for the application of the ESMS, this position is the lead responsible for ensuring that ESMS procedures, standards and principles are applied on the regional project portfolio and that projects are in full compliance with respective policies, throughout the entire project cycle.
He/she will also build ESMS capacity in the region to enhance ESMS compliant project design and ensure effective implementation of the risk management strategies. This involves coaching and training of regional staff, project managers and implementation partners (including senior Government officials) as well as supporting recruitment, onboarding and training of project ESMS officers.
This position provides safeguards expertise to support learning from ESMS application in support of further refining the system and increasing the system’s efficiency. She/he will monitor the application of safeguard tools in the region, distil lessons learned and, together with the global ESMS Coordinator, ensure that the system is further developed and refined to improve effectiveness and efficiency in its application.
This position will report to the Programme Support Unit Manager but will be guided technically by the global ESMS Coordinator.

Specific Duties:
Regional portfolio ESMS application:
Leading and ensuring application of ESMS procedures on the regional project portfolio, specifically:

Environmental and social due diligence at project design stage
Screen projects on environmental and social impacts, define risk category, identify necessary impact studies and safeguard tools/plans;
Advise proponents on stakeholder engagement during project design and implementation phase;
Support proponents in contracting experts for environmental and social assessments; where issues are less complex, carry out targeted assessments and stakeholder consultation;
Appraise the quality of final ESIA reports, environmental and social management plans (ESMP) and other safeguard tools;
Ensure appropriate budgeting for ESMS activities;
Conduct final compliance check and prepare ESMS clearance of projects.

ESMS support during project implementation:

Provide ESMS training for executing agency (EA) and other implementation partners at project inception;
Appraise any ESMS deliverables that are due in the inception phase;
Support the EA in reporting progress on implementation of safeguard tools and compliance with all ESMS requirements;
Cover ESMS aspects of annual project supervision missions;
Manage ESMS project data including entries to the Project Portal.

Grievance management and incident reporting:

Set-up the regional mechanism for receiving grievances and complaints in line with IUCN’s three-staged grievance process;
Support the EA in developing the procedures for the project-level grievance mechanism;
Maintain a register of grievance and report on progress solving grievances to the IUCN Head of Oversight;
Ensure timely reporting of incidents and implementation of corrective actions.
Build ESMS capacity in the region
To enhance ESMS compliant project design and ensure effective implementation of the risk management strategies, regional ESMS capacities need to be further strengthened.

This involves:

Train and coach regional staff on the ESMS to ensure consistent application of procedures and standards as well as pro-active integration of ESMS principles into project design;
In collaboration with the global ESMS Coordinator, develop ESMS training materials and deliver training sessions to regional staff, project managers and implementation partners (including senior Government officials);
Ensure adequate recruitment, hiring and on-boarding of new project ESMS officers in the region.

ESMS development, refinement, and learning:

Together with the global ESMS Coordinator, ensure that the system is further developed and refined to improve effectiveness and efficiency in its application.

This involves:

Capture lessons learned and feed-back from the EA and project stakeholders and suggest refinement and improvements of the system;
Contribute to enhancement of safeguard tools and institutional processes to increase effectiveness of ESMS application;
Generate lessons on the ESMS application identifying good practices and synthesising these practices for dissemination within and outside the institution, including delivery of sessions for the IUCN Academy ESMS training;
Perform other duties as may be assigned from time to time.

Requirements:

Master’s degree in social sciences (sociology, anthropology, indigenous people’s studies etc); or comparable qualification with an environmental focus (e.g. natural resource management or environmental management) but only if combined with extensive experience in social aspects in conservation (e.g. promoting rights-based approaches, improving socio-economic benefits or managing social risks in conservation projects etc);
Minimum of 5 years of relevant professional experience, desirably in the region in multiple countries;
Expert knowledge and practical experience in carrying out environmental and social impact assessments and the application of safeguards/performance standards, in preparing and implementing safeguard tools or integrating safeguard requirements into project design; familiarity with GEF and GCF safeguard polices and national safeguards frameworks in the region;
Practical experience in engaging with indigenous peoples, marginalized, vulnerable or minority groups and local communities, conducting social assessments, guiding FPIC processes and addressing gender risks desired; familiarity with social risks related to environmental law enforcement an advantage;
Demonstrated capacity to work collaboratively within a diverse team, coach colleagues and design and implement training courses;
Very good inter-personal skills and high degree of cultural sensitivity;
Strong analytical skills, diligent working style and ability to quickly evaluate complex situations;
Articulative and able to gain a quick understanding of projects and possible social and environmental impacts presenting them effectively to a larger audience.
Self-driven and able to work independently with minimal supervision and remotely.
Fluency in English and French is a requirement, good knowledge (speaking and writing) of Portuguese or Spanish an advantage.

Source: https://hrms.iucn.org/iresy/index.cfm?event=vac.show&vacId=10723&lang=en

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Regional ESMS Specialist

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